The Momus
"Falamar." There was nothing but darkness. "Falamar." I twisted in my dreams. I still imagined the tentacle around my leg through the veil of fear and emptiness. I drifted toward eternal sleep, but something wouldn't let me go. "Falamar." I opened my eyes and there was water all around, a world without earth or sky. I floated weightless in the current, forever falling in the sea's caress. There was another above me, a woman, but as inhuman as she was beautiful. She was as the tide, powerful but yielding. "Who are you?" I asked. "I am Condatis, the archangel of Danalin, God of the Sea." Afraid, I tried to swim away from her. I wasn't religious but I had seen enough temples and asylums of those that worshipped Danalin to suspect that this wasn't the afterlife I intended. Even if it did feature floating billowy maidens. "Danalin? As in the overlords? Is this the heaven for cultists and zealots?" She looked hurt. There was pain in her eyes, and love. I regretted my words. "No." she replied. "Oh... are you my reward?" "No!" she said, this time there was anger in her eyes. I seemed to be getting this all wrong so I just floated silently and let her speak. "I led you to Keelyn so that she would take you to her father, but Hastur predicts my actions. An achmage, Tebryn Arbandi, means to destroy creation. Go to the Momus, convince him to supply you with a fleet then sail through the Arduro Straight to the Dead Lands. Defeat Tebryn so I have time to defeat Hastur." "You sure you don't want Capria, or that guy that killed Mulcarn? I'm more of a steal-the-kings's-galleon kind of hero." She smiled, "My young prince, we must all make do with what we have." The water rippled and her face replaced with the bearded face of Amergin. He was pulling me up on the beach. "Falamar, are you okay?" "I'm okay," I stammered through racking coughs, "how are the men?" "Some are fine, others haven't been recovered yet." I understood his meaning and picked myself up. After recovering far too few of my men from the sea we went to meet with Perpentach. He ignored the threat of Tebryn and my pleas for help. But he was holding a competition between warlords, and he promised to supply the navy I required if I won. With few men and no ships, we had little choice but to enter. Background In this scenario, Falamar must fight his way out of a random war contest made by Perpentach. It's a very tricky game, as many things can happen. This can also be a very long scenario, and the turn limit (about 550 turns on normal) will be a looming threat here, as even if you are vastly in the lead, you will lose the challenge if you let time run out before all enemy civs are destroyed. As a result, this match is strictly military and favors lightning-fast rushes over prolonged seiges. *'Player:' Falamar (Lanun), starts with two Settlers, two Swordsmen, two Archers, and sometimes an extra unit depending on what patch you've installed. *''Other Cilivisations'': *Perpentach (Balseraph), starts with 3 cities and decides the diplomacy for all other players. *Beeri Bawl , Luichuirp. *Mahon the Butcher, Calabim. *Duke Sallos, Infernal. *Tya Kiri, Amurites. *Captain Uldanor, Hippus. *Weevil, Pickle, and Hyde, Balseraph. *Furia the Mad, Balseraph. *Melisandre, Balseraph. *'Status: '''Permanent Alliance with everyone, but not on a team. There is a secret way to declare war on him though. Strategy (Note: This is one player's approach to the mission. The background is accurate, but there are other ways of winning the mission.) Before I begin, I want to note a few things in this game. *All Living units ingame will have Mutated automatically, so some of your units may start uber strong or wimpy weak, depending on the promotions they get. *Perpentach will have the following descisions of who fights who: 1) '''Peace.' Initially set at the beggining, no one fights and can't declare war. Once Perpentach makes his first declaration, he will not return the game to a Peace status again. However, if a civilization that is the target of a Dogpile declaration is destroyed, all players will be at peace until Perpentach makes a new declaration. 2) Free For All. All Civs fight. 3) Dogpile you. Apparently Perpentach hates the Lanun or he wouldn't have this option. Needless to say, everyone is going to attack you. 4) Dogpile Another Civilization. 'All players go to war against a single civilization. Although Perpentach may only declare this against one other civilization during your playthrough, he can declare a Dogpile on any civilization in the game. He seems to focus this declaration on whichever player is in the lead, either in terms of empire size, military power, or both. Therefore, he's likely to harass the same player repeatedly with this declaration and, once you establish a strong lead, completely forget about it. And note that there is only one good civ (Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp) and that the Infernals are out already. This is intentional: they will be extremely difficult to beat because they'll have high Mane creation meaning lots of expansion and units. It's also very difficult to predict what will happen during this scenario because of Perpentach, so I'll just try to outline a basic strat here. The Calm Before the Circus ---- In this very short period or time, your best bet is to settle right where you started, or a little to the left. The other city should be a bit more southeast. These will most likely be the only cities you have for a while, because there's not a lot of room to expand. If you can get a third or fourth city down with no war, lucky you. Here's a few things you'll want to do before things get crazy: *'Found Order. This is the perfect counter to those damned Infernals, who will no longer be able to leech off your troops. Try to spread the faith so you can choke their Mane source off, but don't be too hopeful: All the other civs will attempt to adopt Fellowship of Leaves, Runes of Kilmorph, Octopus Overlords, or Ashen Veil. *'Get Spellcasters.' You'll want the Spell Boosts, and if you can get a Mage, try to get a summon or damage spell. *'Scout the world.' This is best done by trading maps with the other contestants before you lose relations with them due to enforced (by Perpentach) declarations of war. Alternatively, you can accomplish this on foot, but there are some goody huts and lairs, and there are few barbs starting on the map, so get moving with a Hunter or two. You can also try to get to other portions of the world with a ship and access to the Maelstrom, but watch out if they land in that Kraken - Filled lake. *'Develop Military.' How you do this is up to you, but Archers are nice. *'Try to trade while you can.' At this point, most civs are okay with you, but the HUGE relations penalty you get thanks to all the fights will eventually have you all shunning each other. Tech Trading will give you a head start. Even better, try to bribe civs with gold. Look Keelyn, the Contest has started! ---- At about some point Perpentach yells out his first declaration of war for the contestants. If you haven't founded Order yet, that's alright, but try to get it done. You should send your armies out in at least groups of three, and don't try to take cities yet, you don't have the power. Just pick off units and capture Workers (Especially workers, that way you don't need to produce your own. I ended up taking 4 workers from the careless Infernal AI and the 2 that I started with to make a grand total of 6.). Try to tech up. At Peace Again? ---- Whenever Perp yells stop or Dogpile Beeri, try to tech up while you can and continue to build up your army. That way, if you're at war again at least you came prepared. "Second war involving you" By now, your army should have grown enough to take a few cities from the weaker Civs. This is where Order comes in handy: Any cities liberated by the Order normally will have an Acolyte (or Crusader if Fanatiscism was researched), meaning free priests and guards. Eventually after so many wars, you'll eventually dominate enough that the other civs will fall easily. Don't forget that Order allows you to get Valin Phanuel off the bat and Sphener later on. "What else should I try in peace time?" Well, there are a few tricks that can put you ahead. *Try adopting other religions temporarily to get their priests and UU's. It's beneficial in many ways: *The Council of Esus gives you the ability to harrass without Perp noticing. *Runes of Kilmorph increases production and defense. *Fellowship of Leaves will give you summoners (which are really hard to gain because of the time you'll spend at war). Try to get a Satyr so you can take that Kraken. *Octopus Overlords are great for just being able to swim. *The Ashen Veil actually isn't a good choice thanks to the Infernals. But if you can get a Ritualist , that Ring of Fire can be worth it. Diseased Corpses make good Border Partols, and Beasts of Agares (Try making these in one of your captured cities) are just damn strong. *The Empyrean gives you Chalid. Enough said. *Go for resources that can buffer your military. If you can, try to get to Tier 3 units. *And of course, try to convert everyone to order. *Build Guybrush Threepwood, but only take chances with the Black Wind if you have time. *Here's a neat little secret: Since you absolutely cannot go to war without Perpentach's permission, in this scenario you can damage allies with area-of-effect spells (like Maelstrom and Tsunami) without risk of retribution. So you can soften up rival cities while waiting for a war declaration, and there's nothing they can do about it. Eventually, your opponents will succumb to attrition city by city and you'll win the contest (assuming you haven't run out of time). OR.... (Scroll down if you're interested, this is an in-game secret...) "What about Beeri?" If you, Perp, and Beeri are the last three civs alive, Beeri offers his alliance to you. Take it. Although Perp may be well developed and harder to take on than Beeri (who by now should just have Mud Golems thanks too all the carnage), it only takes marginally longer to win and Beeri will come to aid you in The Black Tower (scenario) . With the Elves (depending on who you played as in The Splintered Court (scenario)), the Bannor (who you can gain in a later scenario), and the Hippus (gotten automatically from the campaign), you should have a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3 allies by the completion of The Black Tower (scenario). 'Alternative Strategies' 'Octopus Overlords' While every religion's strengths come in to play here, none gives you more leverage against all other enemies like the Octopus Overlords religion. Why? One word: Tsunami. The Octopus Overlord disciple unit, the Cultist, has a powerful spell that assaults all nearby tiles adjacent to a water tile with massive cold damage, occasionally destroying tile improvements as well. In other scenarios this is convenient for attacking coastal cities, but in this scenario nearly all of the cities are coastal, meaning your Cultist units are pretty much walking ICBMs. Build and use Cultists to sack cities with a fraction of the time and manpower a standard catapult-based seige would take. Group no less than 3 Cultists with about a dozen Swordsmen, Boarding Parties, or Drown and march along the coast, making sure all your units remain on the same tile and that no friendly units or structures are within 2 tiles. Position your army right next to your target city on a coast tile, and have all your cultists cast Tsunami at once. This should severely damage all units defending that city, as well as annihilating nearby farms and mines, crippling your enemy. Have your melee units move in to conquer. If you don't capture the city in one turn, just cast Tsunami at the start of every turn until your forces take the city. Even if the city has a 40% defense rating and is being protected by a hero unit with five strength promotions, the Tsunami spells should bring them to their knees. The city should be yours in 2-3 turns. If the enemy tries to retake your newly-acquired city with an army triple the size of the one in your city, the Cultists are still your ace in the hole. Wait until the rival forces are within two tiles of your coastal city, then pummel them with Tsunami spells. By the time they reach the walls of your city, their strongest units could be down to less than 1.0 strength and can be repelled by a single archer. What's more, the Cultist unit can walk on water. Group them with Drown and Stygian Guard units, and you can launch a formiddable sea-based sneak attack without ever building a navy. This is useful for hitting the northeastern empires from behind, or if you decide you want to eliminate the Krakens in the central lake. Whatever you do, don't use the Tsunami spell to defend your core cities unless it's your last resort. Tsunami destroys tile improvements and damages units, even your own. One cast in your capital city can cause you to lose valuable resources. Release the Kraken! ---- This may sound counterintuitive, but don't try to kill the two Krakens in the central lake. For one, you'll waste valuable time (and naval units) that should be used to eliminate your rivals. But also, the Krakens are in fact there to help you! They'll go after any naval units that enter their lake, rival civs included, and can take out triremes and galleons faster than you can. This means that, while those Krakens rule the central sea, you won't have to worry about a naval invasion. Rivals that would try to hit your capital city by sea will instead have to slog through Calabim and Amurite territory to reach it, and then they would have to march their armies through chokepoints you can easily defend. You, on the other hand, really don't need to use the central lake. Perpentach will control a majority of the lakeside territory, so there are only two or three rivals you can reach by boat through the central sea. The lake only becomes a viable tactical route if you decide to side with Beeri against Perpentach late in the game, and at that point you will probably already have two or three powerful armies standing right outside Balseraph borders. Trivia *The art for this scenario comes from the loading screen for The Battle Isles from Guild Wars. Category:Scenarios